1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to power supply means for driving flashtubes or lamps as used for optically pumping pulsed lasers.
2. Prior Art
Driving flashtubes with pulses in excess of about two milliseconds (2 ms) is difficult and hitherto has entailed the use of multiple section capacitor inductor networks in a similar manner to that used in conventional radar pulse modulators. Because the impedance of a conducting flashtube is very low, the capacitor inductor network is bulky and expensive, especially for long duration pulses. Moreover because the capacitors are charged to a high voltage (approximately twice the lamp operating voltage) varying the pulse length by tap changing is difficult. Such an arrangement is, therefore, very inflexible. Furthermore, in some laser applications there is also a requirement to carefully control the profile of the pumping pulse. This is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve with any degree of flexibility with a capacitor inductor network.